Tumblr

In lieu of posting here, I've taken to posting to my Tumblr account recently. I've had quite a lot of fun answering questions and such, but the content I post there steals my ideas for full blog posts.

So, if you wish to keep up with my progress, I recommend bookmarking my page there. I will be linking to posts to this blog on that site, either way.

http://stupidgit.tumblr.com/

Outgrown

After every major milestone, I like to take a short break. Gaining for too long starts to take its toll on you, physically and mentally. Personally, I start to feel out of shape and slow, so I do some cardio and focus on weight lifting while on a little break.

Now, though, even when I'm not stuffed with food 24/7 during these times, I'm starting to still feel pretty big. I had the chance to go to an amusement park with my family this weekend, and I was reminded just how big I actually am.

I love me some roller coasters, but unfortunately my boyfriend is scared to death of them. After trying to get him to ride some, I told him all he'd have to do to avoid me bugging him was to get me too fat to fit on them. In my mind, I thought that would be around 350 or 400 pounds or so.

I rode two rides the other day (we went mostly for my nephews). The first was an old wooden roller coaster. When I sat down, my legs were squeezed together so tight and the lap bar dug into my belly. The ride was so rough and unpleasant, I thought it was going to crush me!

Whatever though, it was built in the 70s, they didn't even have many guys my size back then. So, my second ride was on their newest coaster. I expected to have problems on the first one, but definitely not this one. Sitting down, the chunky lap bar only barely got past my legs (just my legs mind you, my belly wasn't a problem), but apparently it needed to click at least three times. The female ride attendants came over and pushed down on it as hard as they could, and eventually it took two of them using what looked like all of their strength to finally lock it in.

My legs were pinched and falling asleep, and I would have been absolutely mortified if I wasn't overflowing with pride. I rode both of those roller coasters just two years ago with absolutely no problems, and now it seems like if I gain one more pound I couldn't even squeeze into the seats if I tried!

So, it happened sooner than I expected it would. There's probably some parks out there with... roomier seating, but either way I'm not bummed at all. Outgrowing things is something I expected, anticipated and looked forward to a lot. Plus, my boyfriend is a very happy man, as a result.

Now that I'm back home, I'd say it's time to get back on the gaining train once again. I promised I would get to 300 before the end of the year, so it's time to get to work!

Double the Git

I've found that milestones are so very important to keep motivated. Not only the typical 200, 250, etc milestones, but many smaller ones too. Moving up clothing sizes, breaking furniture, you name it.

I just recently passed one of my most anticipated milestones: doubling my starting weight of 140. It's absolutely crazy to think that I ever weighed so little, and it reaffirms my drive to keep pushing on.

So, to celebrate, I went a bit crazy with some photos. I found a few articles of clothing that I hadn't seen in years, so I tried them on and snapped some photos--and a video of another milestone!

Check them out on my updated Tumblr. I'll be posting progress pictures and sighting there now, as my poor Flickr account is almost full.

http://stupidgit.tumblr.com/

Conflicts

Apologies for the dry spell of posts, again. I'm back to making progress with my gains again, however. This morning, I tipped the scales at just under 275. A couple long-awaited progress photos have been posted to my Flickr page here.

I guess I'm just at a point that I wonder what direction to take this blog in, again. I've been blogging for just over four years now. In that time, I've consistently wobbled between a 'gaining advice' blog to a 'personal gaining journal/dairy'--sometimes due to my inability to gain, sometimes because I just don't have anything to talk about. And once again, I neither have the ideas for advice, nor the stomach to go on and on about my own progress at the moment.

Gaining is an innately selfish act. You're working solely to improve your appearance, against what everyone else believes to be what is 'good looking.' And, as with anything, attention is addicting. One of my biggest fears is becoming a egomaniac, and I started to really notice just how much I talk about myself. I would never talk about myself in person as much as I talk about myself on the web. Perhaps it's good that indulge in that every once in a while, but for some reason it rubs me the wrong way, right now.

This feeling, coupled with the amount of writing I do at my work now somewhat killed my motivation to post here for the moment. On top of that, all of this microblogging on Twitter and Grommr prevents any real ideas for posts to form. I've had several topics I wanted to discuss, but for the life of me I just can't remember them.

So, bear with me for a bit here, folks. I'll still be on Grommr and the like, I just need some time to think about the blog.

Stats

According to my scale, I'm firmly into 270 territory now. I realized, though, that for as often as I weigh myself, I don't seem to measure anything else very often. In fact, according to my BodySpace (where I keep all this information), the last time I did a full-body measurement update was nearly a year ago.

Back in August of last year, I was coming down from my previous high weight of 251 and was desperately trying to hold on to it. Sadly it wasn't working, and by that point I was down to 241 and slipping. I don't even have any photos of myself at that time.

The thing that struck me about looking at this was just how little the numbers have changed. I've gained so much weight and my body feels almost entirely different, and yet certain parts are only an inch bigger than they were 30 pounds ago. It's quite amazing that a change of less than an inch or so can still make you feel so different.

Be proud of any small change you make with yourself, it changes a lot more than you think!

Fakers

Of all the online communities I've been a part of, I love this one the most. I've made friends though it and I've gotten an amazing amount of encouragement and support from people all over the world. At the core of the community, though, there are two major groups--gainers and encouragers. The ratio between these two groups, like many online communities, is highly skewed--especially if you exclude beginning gainers.

For those, like me, who like the biggest-of-the-big men, it's a shame that there aren't many of these fellas to go around. I like to make friends with superchubs; I'm always curious about life at that weight, and hearing about theirs helps motivate me towards my goals. I spend a fair amount of time looking for big guys to befriend, but in searching, I continually come across something that I simply cannot stand.

In every gainer social networking site, there's always a small percentage of 'questionable' profiles. Men who claim to be of great weight but have no real proof. Profiles with headless, blurry photos (if any), and suspicious descriptions (like weighing 500lbs at age 18, or gaining hundreds of pounds in short timeframes).

Let me cut to the chase and say right now that I can't stand fakers. Skinny guys who claim to be 400, 500 pounds for the attention from chasers and encouragers. Longtime readers of this blog know (in great, whiny detail) of how much work I've put in to make the small progress that I have. Substantial gaining is a risky, time-consuming and difficult task. It is my opinion that the men who've put in the work and the dedication to reach these amazingly large sizes deserve to be in this small minority and their efforts deserve to be appreciated by those of us who may never reach such goals.

It's a shame, though, that there are those among us who see the attention that these men get and don a fake persona to feel what it's like. I probably shouldn't care as much as I do, because as long as they're not using my photos, it really doesn't affect my own goals and anyone with half a brain should be able to figure out their deal. Still, the fact that they even think it's okay to do this annoys me to no end.

I've dealt with fakers in so many of my online experiences. In any field in which I've put in hard work to improve myself, I run into people that have attempted to exploit my efforts to reap undeserved rewards. I've had people claim my drawings as their own. I've had people trace my drawings or use my ideas. I've had people pretend to be able to speak Japanese to me by using an online translator. I've had my own photos used on gaining social networks. I've even had people submit my photos to contests for monetary prizes.

There are so many telltale signs to a poser profile; I've heard them all. I don't want to post pictures of my face. I can't lift up my shirt because I'm self conscious. I'll post a photo soon, as soon as I borrow a camera, I promise! (Who doesn't have access to a camera these days? There's one on almost every piece of technology out there!)

It's quite easy for real guys to dismiss any suspicion. All it takes is one clear photo of you and your face. If you don't want to post your face, just post a few photos so that we at least know your body is consistent. Posers will insist they can't do anything to back up their claims. They never have access to a camera. They might post a photo with the face cropped out, but that's the only one they have and it look suspiciously like someone else you know. Their stubborn, pitiful attempts to cover their lies just compound annoyance.

And yet, there's always this nagging part of me that keeps me from saying anything. The "but what if they really do just have a shitty camera that makes their body look photoshopped? I'd look like a total jackass if I called him out..." feeling. This piles on a helpless frustration onto my annoyance and just has me boiling.

I have to take a stand, unfortunately. I'm tired of dancing around the issue when chatting with these guys, trying to weasel the truth out of them. I've taken a 'guilty until proven innocent' approach to you folk. I apologize to the superchubs out there who genuinely have no access to a way to take a decent photo of themselves, but if you can't prove to me that you're as big as you say you are, I don't want anything to do with you.

Massive apologies for the rant, but I feel so much better now!

Round is a Shape

Even though it's to be expected of an overweight person, I don't like to be too out of shape. As you can imagine, putting on 40+ pounds in three months has had quite an effect on my stamina. At 265 pounds, my capacity to walk the usual path to work were starting to get too much.

The summers here are annoyingly hot and my commute has me walking quite a distance up and down broken escalators. There's one flight that's about three stories tall and if it's not working (and it usually isn't) I'm almost collapsing when I get to the top.

I decided to start doing a bit of cardio to try and get my endurance back. I never really enjoyed cardio, though, because it doesn't give the same instant results that weight lifting does. Plus, it can be extremely boring to run in place for 20 minutes unless you have a television or something.

Even still, it's becoming necessary for me, and I do recommend it to everyone--especially gainers. All you really need to do is keep your heart rate up for 20 or so minutes maybe three times a week; not much of an investment. Exercise isn't something for gainers to avoid, it isn't going to make you lose weight. As any legitimate personal trainer will tell you, weight loss is 90% diet. Doing exercise won't make you thin on its own. My usual 20 minutes of cardio only burns about 200 or so calories (or, say, one doughnut), and weight lifting is even less intensive.

Running on the treadmill is out, though. My only attempt at it left my legs feeling over-strained because of my weight and the heavy impacts to my calf bones--and the machine didn't like it so much either. Fearing that I might break something, I came to love the cycling and the elliptical machines. They're no-impact and great options for just keeping your heartrate up-- or if you're also interested in toning your glutes, as I must admit I'm becoming a bit obsessed with.

I encourage all gainers and big guys to go out there and work out--I need me some some eye candy.